


strange relations

by lastwingedthing



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Moon meets Consolation's family first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 02:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: Moon is living on his own in a forest, and then he makes a very strange friend.





	strange relations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shycraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shycraft/gifts).

Moon arrived outside the little trading post just after dawn, while treelings were still calling from the forest canopy.

It was a beautiful morning, misty and not too hot. The little trading post sat halfway up a little steep rounded hill, surrounded by thick jungle on all sides; an easy place to approach without being seen. Moon had never been here before, but the system of coloured flags hanging from poles above the gates were familiar, reassurance enough that this place was what it claimed to be. Sweet-smelling blue flowers had been planted on either side of the path leading up to the outpost gates, and there were more flowering trees and vines growing over the top of the walls. It seemed like a pretty, comfortable town.

Moon stared at it all for a long moment and stopped, unable to force himself to keep walking.

He’d known since he hunted the pair of kayal yesterday that he was ready to talk to groundlings again; still, he’d been on his own for months now, and it was hard to pull himself together and get the courage to walk forward.

All he’d do today, he told himself once more, would be to trade the kayal hides and horns for coin and supplies, buy a hot meal in whatever tavern this place offered, and then leave. This wasn’t the kind of place he’d like to settle in long term, but it was a good low-stakes environment to remember how to pretend to be a groundling again. It would be easy, he just had to start walking forward again...

Taking a deep breath, he managed to push himself into stepping forward onto the path.

Once he finally made it inside the walls, it wasn't so bad. The gate-guards told him that the little shop to the right with red vines growing over its walls would buy his kayal hides, so Moon walked straight there. The uncured hides with their armour plating and thick horns were heavy, and he wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. At least they’d fetch a good price, enough to buy all the supplies he needed to look like a proper groundling again with plenty left over for emergencies.

Inside the shop Moon could only see one small blue-haired groundling waiting behind the counter, from the usual species that lived in these forested hills and canyons. Then he came a bit further in the door and saw there was another customer waiting at the back of the room, a very large broad-shouldered male of a species he didn’t recognise, with roughly tanned leather clothes and long braided hair hanging down his back. The little blue-haired groundling waved him over right away, so Moon guessed the other customer was already finished.

Moon smiled as soon as he came close to the shop’s owner, the motion feeling strange and unfamiliar on his face. He unwrapped his bundle of hides so the kayal horns were clearly visible.

“I have two kayal hides to sell,” he said, with another smile.

For some reason the shopkeeper’s face fell at once.

“I – I can offer you three pieces of greenstone for the pair,” the shopkeeper said, in a hoarse whisper.

Moon’s jaw dropped.

“For _kayal hides_? Are you _joking_?”

“I – that’s the price we’re paying for them round here – ”

“Tathshit,” Moon said flatly. If this was what groundlings were like round here, maybe he’d go back and live on his own in the forest again after all.

“How much you usually sell kayal hides for?” asked a deep voice right behind him. Moon jumped; he hadn’t heard the other customer come up behind him, which was unusual enough to make him twitchy. The other groundling sounded merely curious, and his Kedaic wasn’t very good, but he was big and giving off serious don’t-mess-with-me vibes, enough to intimidate most groundlings. It certainly seemed to be working on the blue-haired shopkeeper, whose eyes were darting nervously all around the room.

Moon turned to face the newcomer.

“I sold the last hide I got for a deepsea pearl the size of my smallest fingernail. It’d be worth, what – fifty greenstones? Kayal are damn hard to catch, and magisters from Imperial Kish will pay a fortune for their scales and horns.”

The groundling didn’t say anything immediately, but the air of danger around him somehow got more intense.

“I sell kayal hides too. He give me four greenstones for four hides,” he said, mildly enough, but the deep frown on his face told its own story.

Moon saw red. Whoever this groundling was, he was obviously painfully naïve – and this shopkeeper had taken advantage of that.

“Listen, I – there’s been a glut on the market recently – I can’t sell them for the usual price – ” The shopkeeper’s bluster faded out as he took in the expression on Moon’s face.

“Really? Do you think everyone else in this trading post would agree with you?” As he’d hoped, the shopkeeper winced at that; hopefully that meant that not _everyone _in this shitty outpost was a blatant swindler. “It’s unfortunate, because kayal hides cost _sixty _greenstones now. Each.” Moon tried to keep the angry hiss out of his voice, but it was difficult; the other groundling turned to stare at him. _Shit_.

The shopkeeper yelped. “I don’t have that kind of money!”

Moon rolled his eyes. “But I bet you have goods worth that much.”

The shopkeeper yelped again, then looked at the two of them. Finally he seemed to realise that it wasn’t a good idea to aggravate _two_ apparent groundlings who were strong and tough enough to hunt kayal.

“Of – of course, come this way…”

Moon stood beside the other groundling as the shopkeeper set out goods in offer; the other groundling obviously had no idea what anything was worth, and Moon didn’t want to see him ripped off again.

He looked almost overwhelmed when they’d finished, and a tidy but substantial pile of goods was sitting by the door ready for him. Moon’s goods fit into a small leather pack, but the other groundling had said yes to an enormous variety of supplies – furs, cloth, metal cooking pots, knives, seed grain, not to mention a substantial handful of greenstones to pay for further purchases. The shopkeeper even packed everything into heavy packs for him, though it seemed like it would be too much for one groundling to carry, even as big as this one was.

Then again if he was strong enough to hunt kayal, who knew what he could do?

“Thank you,” the groundling said, dark eyes sincere. “You are good person. Thank you.”

Moon shrugged, feeling uncomfortable at the praise.

“I just don’t like to see people getting taken advantage of. The way he was treating you – it just wasn’t fair.”

The other groundling smiled, the expression looking a little awkward, but sincere.

“Thank you,” he said again.

Moon hesitated. He had what he’d come for – but somehow he didn’t like to see this groundling walking away just yet.

_I just want to make sure no-one else takes advantage of him_, Moon thought, but he knew it wasn’t just that. There was someone else drawing him towards this man, something strangely familiar.

“I was going to buy some lunch and a drink from the tavern,” Moon said, after a moment’s indecision. “Would you like to come with me?”

The strange groundling’s smile widened; he nodded happily.

“I’m Moon, by the way,” Moon said.

The other groundling hesitated. “I am Kayal.”

Moon almost rolled his eyes at the obviousness of the fake name, but what did it matter if his new friend was too uncomfortable to share the truth just yet?

Moon, of all people, could understand that.

The food was surprisingly good, sweet roots and bitter greens and a surprisingly generous portion of tender slow-cooked meat. Kayal stared at the bowl of stew and the spoon he’d been given to eat them with as if he’d never seen them before, but he managed to mimic Moon well enough.

Mostly they talked about hunting kayal; Moon had to pretend he killed them with the long spear on his back, not his claws, but they were still able to have a good conversation about tracking them and the best locations for an ambush.

Finally Moon had to ask.

“Kayal, do you have a family? Anyone you live with?”

Kayal smiled more warmly than he had all day and nodded. Moon had to crush the sudden disappointed jealousy that grabbed him.

“We lived in bad place for long time. Bad people tell us what to do, we have to do what they say…” He shook his head, eyes troubled. “But my sister and her father have plan. We kill bad people, run away. We live how we want now.”

Moon thought of the things Kayal had bought – the tools and seeds and cloth – imagined a little family of big broad-shouldered groundlings striking out on their own, ignorant, but determined to live a good life together.

He swallowed round the sudden lump in his throat.

“I’m glad you have a family looking after you,” he said, meaning it.

“What about you?” Kayal asked, leaning in to meet Moon’s eyes with sudden urgency.

Moon felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards in a wry half-smile. “No. My family died a long time ago.”

Kayal shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry.”

Moon shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I’m used to living on my own.”

Kayal frowned. “You don’t live with your people?”

Moon shook his head. He had to – he had to think of some excuse –

But suddenly he found himself telling Kayal the truth.

“I don’t know who my people are,” he said softly, looking down at the table. “My mother and siblings died when I was very young, and she never told me what we were or where the rest of our people might live. I’ve never found anyone like me…”

Kayal’s eyes looked anguished now. “That’s bad. I’m sorry!”

“It’s alright,” Moon said, shrugging again. It was an old hurt, well-buried. “It is what it is.”

Despite the awkwardness of that conversation, he found himself meeting Kayal regularly after that. Every sevenday they met at the outpost to sell whatever they’d hunted and buy supplies, and then they ate at the little tavern together and shared hunting stories, funny stories from Moon’s travels and Kayal’s family. They didn’t touch on anything as personal as they had the first time; Moon never offered for the two of them to go hunting together, and Kayal never asked if Moon wanted to meet his family.

Still, Kayal was the best friend Moon had made in many years… Enough incentive to stay in this forest for much longer than he’d planned.

Then the Cordan soldiers came.

There’d been waves of refugees coming through this region for months, running from the Fell; it seemed that a whole group of cities to the south had recently fallen to a wave of Fell attacks. Most of the refugees were simply looking for food and a roof over their heads for a few days before they left to keep searching for a new place to call home, but the soldiers were different.

They stayed for days and days, demanding to be quartered on the town at the townspeople’s expense. Everyone agreed to it, knowing that the soldiers were too dangerous to fight and that they'd promised to leave within a turn of the moon – only they didn’t leave.

And then they demanded that the inhabitants of the outpost leave, instead, and turn their homes and businesses over to the soldiers.

“You can’t do that,” little Raya said; she was the owner of the tavern Moon and Kayal visited, a kind little woman with fluffy purple hair who came barely up to the Cordan soldiers’ shoulders. “These are our homes! Where would we go, in the forest? We can't live out there without town walls for shelter!”

The leader of the Cordans just shrugged, uncaring. The little outpost was cramped and all its streets were narrow, so he and his soldiers had cleared a wide space in the flat land at the base of the hill, and now they practiced their marching and weapons there regularly. They were all lined up there now, below the only gate, with their spears and bows threatening; an intimidating display for the townsfolk.

Moon shook his head, appalled. He probably could fight a lot of those soldiers, but not all of them – particularly not when they were armed with bows.

He had one idea, but he didn’t know if it was a good one…

But he didn’t have a choice. Blue-haired Doron was a swindling shit, but even he didn't deserve to lose everything he owned to die a painful death in the forest. And everyone else in this town was friendly and kind - none of them deserved what was happening.

He couldn’t let this happen to them, he just couldn’t.

Raya was crying; the Cordan soldier had turned contemptuously away to sneer at Doron, who was yelling at him hopelessly from across the road.

“Kayal, Raya,” he said. “I have an idea…”

They both turned to look at him expectantly; it was suddenly very difficult to speak.

“I – I’m a shapeshifter. I have another form. It looks like a Fell… but it isn’t, I’m not a Fell, I promise. But if I shift and fly at these soldiers, they’ll probably think I’m a Fell and run away.”

Raya just stared at him wide-eyed, but unexpectedly Kayal _laughed_.

“I know you’re not a Fell, Moon,” he said hoarsely; his Kedaic had gotten markedly better even in the few months Moon had known him. “You’re Raksura.”

Moon stared, lips parted in shock. “What – ”

“I have a better plan than you," he said, low voice more hoarse than usual. "I promise I won’t come back afterwards. But you have to promise you run away or kill anyone else you ever see who looks like me.”

Kayal turned to look directly at Moon, his dark eyes pained. “Sorry, Moon. Sorry I didn’t tell.”

Then he turned away and _shifted_ – Moon felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

Moon wasn't the Fell - _Kayal_ was.

Kayal was a kethel.

Moon couldn’t do anything but stare, helpless betrayal churning in his gut. Kayal – the kethel – immediately leapt into the air and flew, low and roaring, towards the Cordan soldiers.

There was a lot of screaming; most of them ran, a few stayed to throw futile spears into the air –

A spear bounced off Kayal’s foreleg; he suddenly lurched sideways and in the worst piece of acting Moon had ever seen, pretended that his _wing_ had somehow been damaged by that useless twig of a spear. There was a lot of helpless flapping, and then Kayal awkwardly made his way over to a tree-crowned hill in the distance and disappeared.

The Cordan soldiers were cheering – somehow they’d bought Kayal’s ridiculous act – and a few were dancing and throwing things in the air to celebrate; but most were still running or planning to run, and even as Moon watched, those smart ones started pulling their celebrating friends along.

They’d been fighting Fell for moons, had seen their cities destroyed… of course they knew that Fell never travelled alone and that kethel were only the harbingers.

Beside him, Raya was trembling slightly, but she was mostly still.

“I didn’t know,” Moon said uselessly; he was swinging back and forth between betrayal and confusion. “Raya, I didn’t know…”

“Me either,” she said, shaking her head back and forth.

“Kethel don’t behave like that!” Moon burst out finally. “I didn’t know…”

Kethel didn’t speak bad Kedaic or wear clothes. Kethel didn’t trade for cooking pots and seed grain, or get cheated by swindling shopkeepers. Kethel didn’t tell terrible jokes, or silly stories about their younger brothers who accidentally ate a whole firepod plant before realising that the spicy flowers burned. Kethel weren’t smart enough to carry out ruses, like Kayal had done – Moon had _fought _kethel before, killed them, and he _knew _they were no smarter than animals. Only rulers had intelligence among the Fell, he knew that.

_We lived in bad place_, Kayal said, in Moon’s mind. _Bad people tell us what to do_…

Moon shook his head. This was mad, and maybe it would end as badly as Saraseil… but he had to know.

“I have to leave too,” he told Raya quietly. He hesitated. “I’m sorry. Kayal was right – if you ever see anyone who looks like either of us, you have to run.”

Raya’s mouth moved; she looked like she was going to speak, but then she shook her head and said nothing.

“Goodbye, Raya,” he said; then, shifting, he flew.

Kayal was in groundling form again when Moon reached the hill. Looking at him, Moon could suddenly see the Fell in the shape of his face and the pale colour of his skin – he’d seen kethel in their groundling forms a few times, even, he knew what they looked like – except that at the same time he couldn't be. Kayal had braided hair and a long loose tunic over baggy trousers, like no kethel Moon had ever seen; no wonder Moon hadn't recognised him for what he was. Part of Moon still couldn't believe it, even now that he'd seen Kayal shift.

“You came,” Kayal said, sounding almost surprised.

Moon hesitated. He wanted to know why Kayal was different from every other kethel, he wanted to know if there really was a whole flight of Fell who’d taken up gardening and hunting for trade –

“What’s a Raksura?” he asked, instead of any other question that was in his mind.

Kayal smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You,” he said simply. “You’re a Raksuran consort.”

Moon shook his head. “What – ”

“We’re cousins, Raksura and Fell,” Kayal said finally. “We’re all shifters and we all fly, but Raksura aren’t like us. Their queens can’t take their minds like our rulers and progenitors can, they’re not – ” He stopped again, searching for words.

“You’re like groundlings,” he said finally. “You make things, you grow things. You have real lives, in your heads, not just what the progenitors put there…”

Moon shook his head, trying to come to terms with what Kayal was telling him.

“Is that why you’re different from every other kethel I’ve met?”

Kayal nodded grimly. “It’s – bad,” he said slowly. “The progenitors aren’t always in your head, but when they are you have to do things, you _have_ to. So it’s better not – not to be in your head at all. Just be a body who does things. It’s better not to be a person when you’re killing baby groundlings while their parents watch. Or when the rulers say, there’s not enough food, go eat some dakti, that injured kethel…”

Moon shook his head again, feeling sick to his stomach. He hated all Fell, he still hated all Fell, but if the dakti and kethel didn't have a choice - if they acted like mindless animals because they _had_ to - 

“So how did you escape? You and – your family?”

Kayal looked at the ground.

“I told you, Fell and Raksura, we’re cousins. Kin. Some progenitors… some progenitors want Raksuran powers, from their mentors, want Raksuran queens’ strength. So they capture them and breed…”

Moon thought of Saraseil again, what Liheas had wanted from him, and almost vomited.

“My progenitor had a Raksuran consort. Mostly stolen Raksura die fast, they want to die, but he was young and strong and he wanted to be there for his babies… he kept living. And he had a daughter, a progenitor-queen. Our mother didn’t understand her powers, didn’t realise what her father was teaching her…”

He looked up and met Moon’s eyes.

“We killed her, all her rulers too. Now we’re free.”

With a sudden shock Moon realised they weren’t speaking Kedaic anymore – realised they were speaking a language he didn’t recognise, except somehow he _knew _it, somehow he could speak it as fluently as if he’d been using it all his life…

“The consort.” Moon had to stop and swallow in a throat that was suddenly bone-dry. “The Raksuran consort, your sister’s father… Is he with you? Does he still live?”

Carefully, Kayal nodded. He was staring at Moon with a strange, almost hopeful look in his eyes…

“Would you like to meet him?” he asked.

Of course it was crazy, Moon _couldn’t_. He’d already escaped the Fell once…

They flew together for hours. Kayal was so much bigger and stronger than Moon, and he'd offered to carry Moon so they could reach the rest of his family faster, but Moon couldn’t accept that. So instead they just flew together, Kayal matching Moon’s pace, while Moon pushed himself to fly until his wings ached.

The hills were steeper here, forming deep branching canyons. Finally Kethel stopped and turned, stooping down into one of the narrow ravines.

Cursing himself, Moon followed.

He wouldn’t have thought there’d be room for Kayal between the trees, but they were bigger than he’d thought, very tall straight trunks with no branches until the very top. Then they came to a clearing, a rapid river flowing between banks lined with some kind of delicate stone ruins, the remains of slender towers and pillared halls. Between the broken stones he could see small gardens, the beginnings of young sprouts shooting up through the cultivated dirt - from the seeds he had helped Kayal buy?

Moon couldn't think about it now.

Dakti flew into the air all around them – other kethel – it took every bit of willpower Moon possessed not to turn tail and flee on sheer instinct.

But he’d come this far. Even if it turned out like Saraseil again – even if it was _worse_ – he had to know.

And somehow – somehow Moon felt like the danger and fear made this _easier_. Some part of him wouldn’t have believed anything that sounded comfortable, and easy – any story that the whispering paranoid voice in the back of his mind could tell him was too good to be true. Somehow something terrible and fearful was easier to believe in.

Moon didn’t want to think about that now, though; didn’t have time to think about it.

Kethel had just landed on a stone courtyard ringed with delicate, broken sculptures. He shifted immediately to groundling; Moon landed beside him and followed suit.

There were dakti all around, but most of them stayed perched in the trees and on the stone ruins around them; only one joined Moon and Kayal in the courtyard. His winged form seemed strange, somehow, but he wasn’t shifting for Moon to figure out how.

“They’ll come now,” Kayal said in response to a questioning look from Moon.

Moon nodded grimly; tension was churning in the pit of his stomach.

Then he looked at Kayal again.

“What’s your real name?”

Kayal grinned at him, showing teeth.

“Didn’t you guess? I’m Kethel.”

Despite his churning fear Moon couldn’t help but laugh.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but felt like hours, when Moon finally saw two new black shapes spiralling down out of the sky.

One of them looked a little like a young ruler, but he had spines down his back like – like Moon did.

The other one could have been Moon’s twin.

They both landed and shifted abruptly, all staring at each other. The ruler was even younger than Moon had thought, barely adolescent, and _female_ – the sister Kethel had spoken of, surely.

The other one had golden eyes and his fluffy hair had a golden tinge, but his skin was dark bronze like Moon’s, the shape of his face was like Moon’s, his lean tall build, even the shape of his hands…

He was younger than Moon, though, much younger – with a wrenching sensation Moon realised that if the not-ruler beside him was his daughter, he couldn’t have been much older than she was now when she was born.

Moon couldn’t stop staring at him.

“It’s true,” the other man said very quietly, eyes huge. “Kethel told me he’d found a solitary consort but I didn’t believe him…”

Kethel moved restlessly beside them, but Moon couldn’t bear to look away.

“Am – am I a consort?” Moon could barely get the words out. “Am I like you?”

The consort’s eyes widened even further. “You don’t _know_?”

“I was lost,” Moon said. “I was very small – I didn’t know – ”

Suddenly the consort stepped up close to him, took his hands.

“You _are_. You’re Raksuran, like me. What’s your name?”

“Moon,” he answered, in a very small voice. “You’re – ”

“I’m Cirrus,” he said firmly. “And this is my daughter, Consolation. And my son, First.”

He beckoned, and the strange-looking dakti came forward, shifting to join the rest of them.

“This is my family,” he said firmly, his eyes determined. “Would you like to stay with us?”

Moon looked around him – Fell and half-Fell and one strange being who was the only person Moon had ever met who was like him. Everything about their story was strange and horrible and painful… but so was Moon’s story, so was everything that had ever happened to Moon, and somehow he knew that he could fit here, he could be _himself _here. There'd been a lost boy, once, who’d feared he might be Fell himself…

Moon was still that boy.

Kayal – Kethel – was almost quivering with eagerness beside Moon, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t attempt to force him.

Moon looked at him, and at Cirrus, and at the strange half-Fell girl beside him…

“Yes,” he said, with a soft voice, in the language he hadn’t known he knew. “Yes, I’d like to stay with you.”


End file.
